I've thought of this too every time I try to swat a fly that found its way into my house. Flies seem to be able to do aerial maneuvers in reaction to threats that you would think impossible given their tiny brains. I often wondered if it wasn't that they were so quick, but that (to them) I was moving so slow. This might also explain why they seem to like buzzing right by me when I'm trying to kill them. They're taunting the big creature moving in slow motion. "You think you can catch me? I'm right in front of you. Nope. Now I'm over here. Over here. Over here. Too slow. Try and catch me." *zips into another room*
My son has muscle tone issues that make writing difficult. He can do it but will quickly tire and get frustrated. And when he's frustrated, he is NOT learning. (Depending on how frustrated he gets, everyone else in the class might not be learning either.) If he's allowed to type up notes or assignments, however, he flourishes. He's insanely bright but limiting him to "only pen and paper" would mean limiting his learning experience.
I definitely don't think tablet computers are magical cure-alls for education. In the hands of some students, they might prove to be expensive distractions. However, for other students, they might vastly improve learning. Like anything, this should be evaluated on a case by case basis. Give the tablets to the students who need them and lock them down so they are used for education, not mere entertainment.
We need to change this perception and reward students who try really hard and/or do well in school
This (sadly) reminds me of a tale I heard during New York's horrid round of testing last year. Kindergarten students were being tested on the computer and the kids noticed that as they answered the questions correctly, they got harder questions and the test took longer - often resulting in them missing lunch. However, if they answered 5 questions wrong, they were given games to play. Guess what the kids began doing? If you answered "purposefully got the answers wrong to play games" then you win! (Personally, I think they aced the true test of recognizing when the system is stacked against you and finding a way to beat it.)
It kind of makes me wonder how much of the 30% passing rate is from the tests being absolutely NOT age appropriate, how much was from the tests requiring the kids to answer way too many questions in too short of a time, and how much was from kids saying "Forget this! I'll just answer all B's and get this over with!"
Sadly, my state government seems to think that the best path to increase student performance is:
1) Tests, Tests, and more Tests - Pearson has been given a multi-million dollar contract to implement said tests, parents/teachers are forbidden from seeing anything on them, and Pearson gets to decide how to score them. There was a 30% passing rate in NY after the new - much harder - tests were implemented. But don't worry because Pearson sells a line of teacher training programs, textbooks, etc that can help raise students' scores.
2) Charter Schools - The governor recently said that the "death penalty" should be implemented for public schools that don't pass. Note that I said "public schools." Charter schools can admit who they want (no special ed or special services kids in there if they don't want them) and don't need to take the tests. So they wouldn't be eligible for the "death penalty." However, charter schools pull their funds from the public school bank just like public schools. So public schools are left with less money and more students with special needs. This effectively means that the "death penalty" for public schools will mean more charter schools (and possibly some private schools). Charter schools are also run by businesses, don't require their teachers to have teaching degrees, etc. It would be very interesting to see if the companies that run charter schools in New York contributed to Governor Cuomo's campaign and, if so, how much they gave.
Interesting idea in theory, but it would fail miserably in practice. For example, suppose Sally, Debbie, and Barbara are best friends until Sally and Barbara have a falling out. Sally enacts the "ban anyone I don't want to talk to" provision and Barbara's class schedule gets moved around so Sally doesn't have to see her... with the added "bonus" of Debbie and Barbara being kept apart. So now Sally is making sure that Debbie remains HER friend and NOT Barbara's. This could easily be used by the head of an "in" group to maintain social control. Do anything against them and you get kicked out of the "in kid" schedule.
Or would the ban work the other way around? Sally doesn't want to be near Barbara anymore (say because she found out that Barbara posted an embarrassing photo of Sally online) so Sally needs to change classes. But her best friend Debbie is in the classes as well. So now she needs to choose between being abused by Barbara and being separated from her friends.
This says nothing about the level of complexity that this would impose on the schools. How do you rearrange schedules so that no two kids are in class together when they're said they don't want to be? How do you chart their hall paths so they don't cross? Or control student movement so that the kids don't skip class to torment someone in the halls? There's no way that schools would be able to keep up with this.
As the parent of a 10 year old and 6 year old, let me say: It doesn't start at puberty. It starts much, MUCH earlier. People always say "terrible two's" but every year has its own "fun" downside. Also its own fun - no sarcastic quotes - upside as well, but that's parenting for you. Any parent who says they never have any problems with their kid is either lying or has blocked out the memories.
I do that too - Jewish Sabbath, though, so from Friday night to Saturday night. I used to not use anything with electricity at all but have relaxed my rules over the years as I went from single to married to married with kids. Now, I don't do anything that could pertain to my job (webmaster). This mainly means no computers and no smartphone (for data or calls), TV is ok, though, and I'll geek out with my boys watching Doctor Who. (They're catching up so I get to re-watch the series through their excited newly minted Whovian eyes.)
The degree of electronic Sabbath might be different for each family - some could go full no-electricity and some would be just no computers - but I definitely recommend regularly turning off the electronics and forcing yourself to do something together.
And, when their kids get the technology back (either at school, at a friends' house, or when they go to college), they won't know how to use it properly.
My kids (10 and 6) each have their own Android tablet (for which they saved their own birthday money). I've taught them what they are allowed to do (read books, play games, etc), what they are not allowed to do (use social games that have you communicating with strangers, use YouTube - at least until I find some YouTube-WhiteList app - and try to buy/install new apps - they are actually blocked from this but we still talked about it). They love using the technology and, yes, would overuse it if given the chance (playing games instead of doing homework), but that's where this newfangled thing called "parenting" comes into play. Let the kids use the devices ONLY when homework is done, chores are done, etc and ONLY for a certain amount of time. Don't bemoan how your kids won't look up from the iPad. Take the iPad away and they'll be FORCED to look up!
They're doing it because their kids – Trey, 5, and Denton, 2 – wouldn't look up from their parents' iPhones and iPads long enough to kick a ball around the backyard.
On one hand, as a parent, I can sympathize. My boys (10 and 6) at times seem like electronics addicts. They love watching television - by which I mean Netflix over our Roku box - and they love playing games on their Galaxy Tab 2 tablets (which they bought using saved up birthday money). However, on the other hand, if I need them to put the electronics down, there's a very simple and effective technique I employ. It's called TAKING THE ELECTRONICS AWAY!
No, my kids don't like it. Yes, they'll yell and scream about how it's not fair that they need to practice band, read (an actual book), or do something not-electronics-related. This is part of parenting, though. Kids aren't mature enough to think long term. (Plenty of grown ups aren't mature enough for this either, but that's a different discussion.) You need to think long term for them. Yes, it would be fun to do nothing but play games and watch TV 24/7 but then important but boring things like paying bills, grocery shopping, and important household chores wouldn't get done.
On a side note: Personally, I like separating every Saturday and taking that off from using any computer. It started (in my more religious days) as a religious activity but nowadays it's a check on me: 1) overworking - My dad used to work from 5am until he got home at around 6pm... and then he'd work until 10pm. It would be too easy to fall into that pattern myself (either on projects either for my office or my own personal stuff). So being forced to put down the computer is a good thing. 2) drowning in social media - I like using Twitter, Instagram, etc, but it's nice to take a day off so I don't find myself reaching for the phone because I'm wondering what TwitterFriend34 is up to (while ignoring my kids).
I do the same, but I tend to keep it attached to my car if we're going on a road trip. Otherwise, during normal car use, the EZPass is in a bag in my glove compartment.
They definitely weren't "rough housing peers." They would regularly follow me from class to class making fun of me as I went along (loud enough so I could hear them). If I tried to lose them, they'd make fun of me for doing that. When they didn't follow me, they would show up at my class before me and block the way (only for me, not for other students) so that I had to push through them (as they hurled insults).
At the time, the lesson I learned was that I needed to show absolutely no emotion to anyone ever, talk to as few people as possible, act as though everyone was against me, and bottle up everything. Certainly, not very good lessons to learn. It was only when I was in college, with both distance and time between me and the torment, that I learned a better lesson: There are people in this world whose opinions you care about and people whose opinions you don't care about. If someone wants to make fun of you, chances are that person is in the "don't care about" category and you should just ignore them.
I actually find that I handle some interactions better than my wife (who wasn't bullied like I was) because she's afraid of what people will think while I just don't care. Then again, I'd rather my kids didn't have the learn the lessons I learned via the method I learned them. I'll never fully recover from the years of daily torment I went through.
Or, to put it another way: "Dat's a nice website you have dere. It'd be a shame if something were to HAPPEN to it. You know, like slowing to a crawl or something? But if you just pay us for Super High Speed Service, we'll make sure our customers see your site just fine."
As for ISP's customers, many don't have a choice. If I want high speed Internet, my choices are Time Warner Cable or nothing. Verizon has DSL service, but they've shown that they are increasingly ditching it so jumping to that would be leaping onto a sinking ship. It might buy me some time above water, but it's not a long term solution. (FIOS doesn't reach me and Verizon has no expansion plans.) Given that I do my work online, going without Internet isn't an option so I'm stuck with TWC no matter what ridiculous restrictions they impose. (And, trust me, they know the position their customers are in.)
HTTPS doesn't protect against the ISP knowing who you are communicating with. As for VPN, we're already seeing some places blocking VPN. If ISPs turn their Internet offerings into pay-per-view, how long until VPN and all similar technologies are blocked?
A good start in the US would be to separate the infrastructure and content provider aspects of the business. Right now, Time Warner Cable has an incentive to slow down, block, or otherwise limit other video sites because they could cause a drop in Time Warner Cable's video services. They use their monopoly of the infrastructure to protect their content provider business.
Imagine if the company was separated, though. Let's call them Time Warner Internet (TWI) and Time Warner Television (TWT). TWI would only get its money from Internet connection subscriptions so it wouldn't have an incentive to limit online video services. Meanwhile, TWT wouldn't be able to enforce its Cable TV service via its Internet access monopoly. You might even get TWI allowing other cable providers to offer their service via TWI lines leading to cable competition in markets that - until now - have been monopoly domains.
Sadly, the "giving them aid or comfort" part has been expanded to include virtually anything. Do you oppose NSA spying? Well, by doing so you "give aid and comfort" to terrorists since your opposition might disrupt something that could have thwarted the terrorists' plans. If you don't get in line like a good little patriot and keep your mouth quiet, you're a traitor.
Violence didn't end bullying for me. I was bullied a lot from elementary school through high school. One time, a big bully of mine and I got in a fight to a draw (until a teacher stopped us). He kept tormenting me. Another time, I clothes-lined a kid. (Think those wrestling moves where you grab his arm, pull him towards you, and then knock him to the floor with your arm... only I pushed him a few feet back and into some desks.) That kid stopped but others picked up the slack. Finally, in high school, a pack of kids would follow me around and torment me in any way they could. Individually, they left me alone (perhaps knowing that I could take any ONE of them but not the whole group). Had I fought them, I would have been beaten up and still bullied. That ended when my friend talked with them and told them how it was hurting me. (I was becoming seriously paranoid. I was convinced that any laughter was directed at me. A little push in the wrong direction and I could have been one of those kids who went on a massacre and/or killed himself to escape the torment.) They thought they were "just having fun" and stopped.
There are many ways of stopping bullies. No one method works in all situations, A method that solves it in one situation can be ineffective or even make it worse in another one.
I'm convinced that my grandmother died for this reason (a belief, not "shadow people" from a horror movie). She was on her way to recovering from an illness when she just gave up for some reason and said she was going to die. Sure enough, she immediately took a turn for the worse and passed away. I don't think the human mind is capable of everything (you can't "think/believe" your way out of terminal cancer), but it is extremely powerful and can tip the balance towards or away from recovery depending on the patient's attitude.
We must protect the Constitution by any means necessary!
And by any means, I mean gathering up all copies and putting them in a cellar without lights or stairs, in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a "Beware of The Leopard" sign on the door.
Only then will we ensure our freedoms remain safe.
Exactly. Just like the police would probably catch a whole lot more "bad guys" if they could just bust into whomever's house they wanted to on a whim, go through their stuff looking for evidence, and not have to worry about warrants or anything. However, there are very good reasons that we prevent them from doing this. First and foremost because this power would be abused to intimidate. ("You said something we don't like so we're going to 'search' your house twice a week until we find something to lock you up on. Or until you shut up. Or until you resist the slightest bit so we're justified in shooting you.")
It was the fact they put their arms up to shield their face that resulted in such a horrible beating
You say this as a funny comment, but I've been told this seriously. Back in the second grade, my son was in lining up for an assembly (about bullying, ironically) when one kid (a known trouble-maker) started jumping forward in line. My son is sensitive about his personal space so when the kid jumped in front of him, my son put his arms up to protect his face. The kid hit my son hard in the stomach. Hard enough to send him to the nurse with bruises.
I had a meeting with the principal and teachers about it. After first denying anyone saw what happened, they then told me that my son started it by raising his hands. When they moved from that to "your son's not the TYPE to be bullied" (their exact wording), I ended the meeting and my wife came to bring my son home. We pulled him out of school and went to the superintendent to change schools since we didn't feel he was safe there.
Blaming the victim, sadly, is something that many people engage in instead of taking responsibility for their actions.
Is Slashdot still mostly single guys? That might make for a good Slashdot poll.
I agree with you on the family fingerprint customization idea, though. Ideally, there would be a profile for each user. Users could be "admins" and have access to all apps or "users" (aka kids) and have access to the apps that the Admins gave them.
Slashdot Mirror
I've thought of this too every time I try to swat a fly that found its way into my house. Flies seem to be able to do aerial maneuvers in reaction to threats that you would think impossible given their tiny brains. I often wondered if it wasn't that they were so quick, but that (to them) I was moving so slow. This might also explain why they seem to like buzzing right by me when I'm trying to kill them. They're taunting the big creature moving in slow motion. "You think you can catch me? I'm right in front of you. Nope. Now I'm over here. Over here. Over here. Too slow. Try and catch me." *zips into another room*
My son has muscle tone issues that make writing difficult. He can do it but will quickly tire and get frustrated. And when he's frustrated, he is NOT learning. (Depending on how frustrated he gets, everyone else in the class might not be learning either.) If he's allowed to type up notes or assignments, however, he flourishes. He's insanely bright but limiting him to "only pen and paper" would mean limiting his learning experience.
I definitely don't think tablet computers are magical cure-alls for education. In the hands of some students, they might prove to be expensive distractions. However, for other students, they might vastly improve learning. Like anything, this should be evaluated on a case by case basis. Give the tablets to the students who need them and lock them down so they are used for education, not mere entertainment.
This (sadly) reminds me of a tale I heard during New York's horrid round of testing last year. Kindergarten students were being tested on the computer and the kids noticed that as they answered the questions correctly, they got harder questions and the test took longer - often resulting in them missing lunch. However, if they answered 5 questions wrong, they were given games to play. Guess what the kids began doing? If you answered "purposefully got the answers wrong to play games" then you win! (Personally, I think they aced the true test of recognizing when the system is stacked against you and finding a way to beat it.)
It kind of makes me wonder how much of the 30% passing rate is from the tests being absolutely NOT age appropriate, how much was from the tests requiring the kids to answer way too many questions in too short of a time, and how much was from kids saying "Forget this! I'll just answer all B's and get this over with!"
Verbing weirds language.
(Obligatory Calvin and Hobbes.)
Sadly, my state government seems to think that the best path to increase student performance is:
1) Tests, Tests, and more Tests - Pearson has been given a multi-million dollar contract to implement said tests, parents/teachers are forbidden from seeing anything on them, and Pearson gets to decide how to score them. There was a 30% passing rate in NY after the new - much harder - tests were implemented. But don't worry because Pearson sells a line of teacher training programs, textbooks, etc that can help raise students' scores.
2) Charter Schools - The governor recently said that the "death penalty" should be implemented for public schools that don't pass. Note that I said "public schools." Charter schools can admit who they want (no special ed or special services kids in there if they don't want them) and don't need to take the tests. So they wouldn't be eligible for the "death penalty." However, charter schools pull their funds from the public school bank just like public schools. So public schools are left with less money and more students with special needs. This effectively means that the "death penalty" for public schools will mean more charter schools (and possibly some private schools). Charter schools are also run by businesses, don't require their teachers to have teaching degrees, etc. It would be very interesting to see if the companies that run charter schools in New York contributed to Governor Cuomo's campaign and, if so, how much they gave.
Interesting idea in theory, but it would fail miserably in practice. For example, suppose Sally, Debbie, and Barbara are best friends until Sally and Barbara have a falling out. Sally enacts the "ban anyone I don't want to talk to" provision and Barbara's class schedule gets moved around so Sally doesn't have to see her... with the added "bonus" of Debbie and Barbara being kept apart. So now Sally is making sure that Debbie remains HER friend and NOT Barbara's. This could easily be used by the head of an "in" group to maintain social control. Do anything against them and you get kicked out of the "in kid" schedule.
Or would the ban work the other way around? Sally doesn't want to be near Barbara anymore (say because she found out that Barbara posted an embarrassing photo of Sally online) so Sally needs to change classes. But her best friend Debbie is in the classes as well. So now she needs to choose between being abused by Barbara and being separated from her friends.
This says nothing about the level of complexity that this would impose on the schools. How do you rearrange schedules so that no two kids are in class together when they're said they don't want to be? How do you chart their hall paths so they don't cross? Or control student movement so that the kids don't skip class to torment someone in the halls? There's no way that schools would be able to keep up with this.
As the parent of a 10 year old and 6 year old, let me say: It doesn't start at puberty. It starts much, MUCH earlier. People always say "terrible two's" but every year has its own "fun" downside. Also its own fun - no sarcastic quotes - upside as well, but that's parenting for you. Any parent who says they never have any problems with their kid is either lying or has blocked out the memories.
I do that too - Jewish Sabbath, though, so from Friday night to Saturday night. I used to not use anything with electricity at all but have relaxed my rules over the years as I went from single to married to married with kids. Now, I don't do anything that could pertain to my job (webmaster). This mainly means no computers and no smartphone (for data or calls), TV is ok, though, and I'll geek out with my boys watching Doctor Who. (They're catching up so I get to re-watch the series through their excited newly minted Whovian eyes.)
The degree of electronic Sabbath might be different for each family - some could go full no-electricity and some would be just no computers - but I definitely recommend regularly turning off the electronics and forcing yourself to do something together.
They want to live like 1986 when they were born?
Bah, kids these days! I was born in 1975... maybe I should raise my kids as if it was still the 70's.
(Cue the older Slashdot members calling me a youngin' and proclaiming that parenting from the 60's, 50's, etc would be better.)
And, when their kids get the technology back (either at school, at a friends' house, or when they go to college), they won't know how to use it properly.
My kids (10 and 6) each have their own Android tablet (for which they saved their own birthday money). I've taught them what they are allowed to do (read books, play games, etc), what they are not allowed to do (use social games that have you communicating with strangers, use YouTube - at least until I find some YouTube-WhiteList app - and try to buy/install new apps - they are actually blocked from this but we still talked about it). They love using the technology and, yes, would overuse it if given the chance (playing games instead of doing homework), but that's where this newfangled thing called "parenting" comes into play. Let the kids use the devices ONLY when homework is done, chores are done, etc and ONLY for a certain amount of time. Don't bemoan how your kids won't look up from the iPad. Take the iPad away and they'll be FORCED to look up!
On one hand, as a parent, I can sympathize. My boys (10 and 6) at times seem like electronics addicts. They love watching television - by which I mean Netflix over our Roku box - and they love playing games on their Galaxy Tab 2 tablets (which they bought using saved up birthday money). However, on the other hand, if I need them to put the electronics down, there's a very simple and effective technique I employ. It's called TAKING THE ELECTRONICS AWAY!
No, my kids don't like it. Yes, they'll yell and scream about how it's not fair that they need to practice band, read (an actual book), or do something not-electronics-related. This is part of parenting, though. Kids aren't mature enough to think long term. (Plenty of grown ups aren't mature enough for this either, but that's a different discussion.) You need to think long term for them. Yes, it would be fun to do nothing but play games and watch TV 24/7 but then important but boring things like paying bills, grocery shopping, and important household chores wouldn't get done.
On a side note: Personally, I like separating every Saturday and taking that off from using any computer. It started (in my more religious days) as a religious activity but nowadays it's a check on me:
1) overworking - My dad used to work from 5am until he got home at around 6pm... and then he'd work until 10pm. It would be too easy to fall into that pattern myself (either on projects either for my office or my own personal stuff). So being forced to put down the computer is a good thing.
2) drowning in social media - I like using Twitter, Instagram, etc, but it's nice to take a day off so I don't find myself reaching for the phone because I'm wondering what TwitterFriend34 is up to (while ignoring my kids).
I do the same, but I tend to keep it attached to my car if we're going on a road trip. Otherwise, during normal car use, the EZPass is in a bag in my glove compartment.
They definitely weren't "rough housing peers." They would regularly follow me from class to class making fun of me as I went along (loud enough so I could hear them). If I tried to lose them, they'd make fun of me for doing that. When they didn't follow me, they would show up at my class before me and block the way (only for me, not for other students) so that I had to push through them (as they hurled insults).
At the time, the lesson I learned was that I needed to show absolutely no emotion to anyone ever, talk to as few people as possible, act as though everyone was against me, and bottle up everything. Certainly, not very good lessons to learn. It was only when I was in college, with both distance and time between me and the torment, that I learned a better lesson: There are people in this world whose opinions you care about and people whose opinions you don't care about. If someone wants to make fun of you, chances are that person is in the "don't care about" category and you should just ignore them.
I actually find that I handle some interactions better than my wife (who wasn't bullied like I was) because she's afraid of what people will think while I just don't care. Then again, I'd rather my kids didn't have the learn the lessons I learned via the method I learned them. I'll never fully recover from the years of daily torment I went through.
Or, to put it another way: "Dat's a nice website you have dere. It'd be a shame if something were to HAPPEN to it. You know, like slowing to a crawl or something? But if you just pay us for Super High Speed Service, we'll make sure our customers see your site just fine."
As for ISP's customers, many don't have a choice. If I want high speed Internet, my choices are Time Warner Cable or nothing. Verizon has DSL service, but they've shown that they are increasingly ditching it so jumping to that would be leaping onto a sinking ship. It might buy me some time above water, but it's not a long term solution. (FIOS doesn't reach me and Verizon has no expansion plans.) Given that I do my work online, going without Internet isn't an option so I'm stuck with TWC no matter what ridiculous restrictions they impose. (And, trust me, they know the position their customers are in.)
HTTPS doesn't protect against the ISP knowing who you are communicating with. As for VPN, we're already seeing some places blocking VPN. If ISPs turn their Internet offerings into pay-per-view, how long until VPN and all similar technologies are blocked?
A good start in the US would be to separate the infrastructure and content provider aspects of the business. Right now, Time Warner Cable has an incentive to slow down, block, or otherwise limit other video sites because they could cause a drop in Time Warner Cable's video services. They use their monopoly of the infrastructure to protect their content provider business.
Imagine if the company was separated, though. Let's call them Time Warner Internet (TWI) and Time Warner Television (TWT). TWI would only get its money from Internet connection subscriptions so it wouldn't have an incentive to limit online video services. Meanwhile, TWT wouldn't be able to enforce its Cable TV service via its Internet access monopoly. You might even get TWI allowing other cable providers to offer their service via TWI lines leading to cable competition in markets that - until now - have been monopoly domains.
Sadly, the "giving them aid or comfort" part has been expanded to include virtually anything. Do you oppose NSA spying? Well, by doing so you "give aid and comfort" to terrorists since your opposition might disrupt something that could have thwarted the terrorists' plans. If you don't get in line like a good little patriot and keep your mouth quiet, you're a traitor.
Violence didn't end bullying for me. I was bullied a lot from elementary school through high school. One time, a big bully of mine and I got in a fight to a draw (until a teacher stopped us). He kept tormenting me. Another time, I clothes-lined a kid. (Think those wrestling moves where you grab his arm, pull him towards you, and then knock him to the floor with your arm... only I pushed him a few feet back and into some desks.) That kid stopped but others picked up the slack. Finally, in high school, a pack of kids would follow me around and torment me in any way they could. Individually, they left me alone (perhaps knowing that I could take any ONE of them but not the whole group). Had I fought them, I would have been beaten up and still bullied. That ended when my friend talked with them and told them how it was hurting me. (I was becoming seriously paranoid. I was convinced that any laughter was directed at me. A little push in the wrong direction and I could have been one of those kids who went on a massacre and/or killed himself to escape the torment.) They thought they were "just having fun" and stopped.
There are many ways of stopping bullies. No one method works in all situations, A method that solves it in one situation can be ineffective or even make it worse in another one.
This Zen Pencils comic seems appropriate: http://zenpencils.com/comic/129-marc-maron-the-social-media-generation/
(And I post this fully knowing that I'm one of the ones who somewhat regularly posts photos and comments on social media.)
I'm convinced that my grandmother died for this reason (a belief, not "shadow people" from a horror movie). She was on her way to recovering from an illness when she just gave up for some reason and said she was going to die. Sure enough, she immediately took a turn for the worse and passed away. I don't think the human mind is capable of everything (you can't "think/believe" your way out of terminal cancer), but it is extremely powerful and can tip the balance towards or away from recovery depending on the patient's attitude.
We must protect the Constitution by any means necessary!
And by any means, I mean gathering up all copies and putting them in a cellar without lights or stairs, in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a "Beware of The Leopard" sign on the door.
Only then will we ensure our freedoms remain safe.
Exactly. Just like the police would probably catch a whole lot more "bad guys" if they could just bust into whomever's house they wanted to on a whim, go through their stuff looking for evidence, and not have to worry about warrants or anything. However, there are very good reasons that we prevent them from doing this. First and foremost because this power would be abused to intimidate. ("You said something we don't like so we're going to 'search' your house twice a week until we find something to lock you up on. Or until you shut up. Or until you resist the slightest bit so we're justified in shooting you.")
You say this as a funny comment, but I've been told this seriously. Back in the second grade, my son was in lining up for an assembly (about bullying, ironically) when one kid (a known trouble-maker) started jumping forward in line. My son is sensitive about his personal space so when the kid jumped in front of him, my son put his arms up to protect his face. The kid hit my son hard in the stomach. Hard enough to send him to the nurse with bruises.
I had a meeting with the principal and teachers about it. After first denying anyone saw what happened, they then told me that my son started it by raising his hands. When they moved from that to "your son's not the TYPE to be bullied" (their exact wording), I ended the meeting and my wife came to bring my son home. We pulled him out of school and went to the superintendent to change schools since we didn't feel he was safe there.
Blaming the victim, sadly, is something that many people engage in instead of taking responsibility for their actions.
Is Slashdot still mostly single guys? That might make for a good Slashdot poll.
I agree with you on the family fingerprint customization idea, though. Ideally, there would be a profile for each user. Users could be "admins" and have access to all apps or "users" (aka kids) and have access to the apps that the Admins gave them.
And fingerprint scanners that check for a pulse are unbeatable, right? What say you, Adam and Jaimie?
Mythbusters: Busted!
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/mythbusters-database/fingerprint-scanners-unbeatable.htm